Never Forget
Background Story: After over 400 years of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites were delivered out of captivity by God. In this passage, they are heading towards the promised land and God is speaking through Moses to His people.
Read Deuteronomy 8
“Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. 3 Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. 5 Think about it: Just as a parent disciplines a child, the Lord your God disciplines you for your own good.
6 “So obey the commands of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and fearing him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills. 8 It is a land of wheat and barley; of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; of olive oil and honey. 9 It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. 10 When you have eaten your fill, be sure to praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.
11 “But that is the time to be careful! Beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God and disobey his commands, regulations, and decrees that I am giving you today. 12 For when you have become full and prosperous and have built fine homes to live in, 13 and when your flocks and herds have become very large and your silver and gold have multiplied along with everything else, be careful! 14 Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. 15 Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! 16 He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. 17 He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.’ 18 Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful, in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath.
19 “But I assure you of this: If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods, worshiping and bowing down to them, you will certainly be destroyed. 20 Just as the Lord has destroyed other nations in your path, you also will be destroyed if you refuse to obey the Lord your God.
Big Idea: Stay humble before God and others.
Christians are prone to amnesia. Amnesia is when someone suffers, “a partial or total loss of memory.” What do I mean?
A person who has put their faith in Christ as their Savior and Lord has recognized their sinful state, their need for a Savior, and confessed Jesus as Lord and King of their life. That person has looked at the good and the bad they have done their entire life and realized it’s lacking and won’t be enough to meet their debt of sin. They see themselves in light of who God is and recognize they can’t do it without Him.
But after this amazing deliverance where we have been set free from sin and death and brought into the promise of forgiveness solely because of the grace of God… somehow we are prone to forget. Like the Israelites in Deuteronomy 8, in our plenty, we can forget the Lord. This comes often in two forms. 1) We can stop seeking Him thinking we can take it from here. 2) We can become self-righteous thinking ourselves better than people who do not know Him yet.
Both of these forms of amnesia come down to one thing… pride. God said in verse 3, “he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” As believers no matter if you have been a Christian for 5 minutes or 50 years, we still live day by day, moment by moment “by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” We cannot live in the promises of God without walking with God. This is not a solo act… Christianity is dependency. In addition, God said to them in verse 17, “He did all this so you would never say to yourself, ‘I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy.” You were saved by grace and grace alone. Other than respond, you did nothing. Therefore, we should have nothing but love, compassion, and forgiveness in our hearts for those who are still walking in darkness.
Guard your heart from pride. It is a trick and tactic of the enemy that will bring distance between you and God, stunting your growth and making you ineffective for His kingdom!
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